 | Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Buy new: £12.34 / Used from: £9.81 Celine's classic, teeming with riotous and beautiful prose, wonderfully translated by Manheim
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 | The Brothers Karamazov by F.M. Dostoevsky
Buy new: £6.49 / Used from: £3.79 If I had this book on a desert island I probably wouldn't want rescuing. Excellent translation too.
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 | The Big Sleep (Penguin fiction) by Raymond Chandler
Buy new: £5.00 / Used from: £2.00 Unrivalled for entertainment value as well as his often imitated but never bettered prose. Sharp, funny and addictive.
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 | Hunger by Knut Hamsun
Buy new: £4.79 / Used from: £4.26 A work of devastation to be classed alongside Celine, Dostoevsky and Fante for its depiction of the agonies of pride.
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 | Tropic of Cancer (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) by Henry Miller
Buy new: £4.79 / Used from: £2.50 Whirling, chaotic prose. The kind of stuff that tugs you along by the collar until you give in and enjoy the free ride.
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 | An American Dream (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) by Norman Mailer
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £2.94 The one that gave me the Mailer bug. At times caustic, at others ethereal, but always inspiring.
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 | Ask The Dust by John Fante
Buy new: £5.49 / Used from: £2.59 by JOHN FANTE!!! Devastatingly clear prose following the damningly complex workings of human nature.
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 | Post Office: A Novel by Charles Bukowski
Buy new: £6.99 / Used from: £3.57 Call him a one-trick pony if you like, but what a pony and what a trick!
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 | The Master and Margarita (Vintage Classics) by Mikhail Bulgakov
Buy new: £5.94 / Used from: £4.89 Magical on so many levels it hurts.
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 | One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Penguin Modern Classics) by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £2.82 Possibly better than Dostoevsky's House of the Dead. In my opinion that's all the recommendation you need.
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 | Money: A Suicide Note by Martin Amis
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £3.28 Brilliant, one of the true classics of the late 20th Century. Peerless prose, genuine wit and damning social commentary.
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 | A Confederacy of Dunces (Penguin Modern Classics) by John Kennedy Toole
Buy new: £6.99 / Used from: £1.37 One of the funniest books ever, with one of the saddest stories behind it.
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 | Humboldt's Gift (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) by Saul Bellow
Buy new: £8.99 / Used from: £4.00 Of all the Bellow books I've read, this is the most entertaining. By turns hilarious, melancholic and informative, Bellow's genius is displayed on every single page.
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 | Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Buy new: £5.39 / Used from: £3.45 It left me exhausted and in total awe. Don't miss the comic genius amongst all of the PoMo debris.
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 | Slaughterhouse 5, or The Children's Crusade - A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut
Buy new: £5.00 / Used from: £2.50 Sublime tragicomedy. Louis-Ferdinand Celine meets the Marx Bros.
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